Chili fundraiser draws a crowd

Sunday

Feb 10, 2013 at 12:01 AM

In a cross between Halloween, Mardi Gras and a neighborhood yard party teeming with competitive chefs, the Exchange Club of Tuscaloosa served up steak, chicken, sausage, venison, peppers, cheese, beans and more beans for its 2013 Great Tuscaloosa Chili Cook-Off on Saturday at the Bryant Conference Center.

By Mark Hughes CobbStaff Writer

In a cross between Halloween, Mardi Gras and a neighborhood yard party teeming with competitive chefs, the Exchange Club of Tuscaloosa served up steak, chicken, sausage, venison, peppers, cheese, beans and more beans for its 2013 Great Tuscaloosa Chili Cook-Off on Saturday at the Bryant Conference Center.The coveted gaudy trophies for booth, costume and showmanship inspired the visual elements, a crucial component to the steaming mixes of sauces and spices. Offering up samples were a full booth of Wizard of Oz characters (including more Dorothys than usual), saloon ladies from Miss Kitty’s (handing out Bunsmoke Chili) and contingents of Duck Dynasty faces so wondrously hirsute it’d be hard to tell the players from grizzly bears without a scorecard.All the leftover wit that didn’t go into costuming and crafting recipes went into the naming of teams: Chili Chili Bang Bang (West Alabama Food Bank), Armadilly Chili (Tanner Guin & Crowell), the Combat Chili Challenge (helping you work off a few calories with help from a Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue sledgehammer), Blazing Saddles (Alabama AG Credit) and Hot Pursuit (the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department, offering one up for “Smokey and the Bandit” fans).Thirty-nine teams competed for awards given by judges, including the hotly contested Grand Champion Chili awards, and also the Best Booth (for design, theme and construction), Best Costume (best fits to a team’s theme) and Showmanship (for overall presentation and performance). “Every one of them is local,” said Curtis Baggett, an Exchange Club member who helped organize the event. “And they get very competitive for this event.”Vying for the crowd’s attention seemed to be the modus operandi for bringing home the People’s Choice Chili awards, earned by popular vote of the roughly 1,000 people who came in to sample and enjoy.“We live for this. We love it,” said Katherine Daniels, one of the “shady ladies” of Miss Kitty’s Bunsmoke Chili, representative from Capstone Bank, with multiple trophies on display. Decked out in wild west saloon garb, Daniels and Phyllis Gamble slapped stickers and slid souvenir garters onto visitors, urging them toward chef Meredith Gardino’s chili.“Trial and error” is her secret, Gardino said, with lots of taste-testing on family, who didn’t complain. Noting that the group “always wins People’s Choice,” she insisted it was because of the chili flavor, but admitted “There’s charm, too.”First-time contestants Robertson Banking Co. entered boldly as Championship Chili, but with a bit of a ringer in four-time chef Billy Wharton, husband of Robertson employee Becky Wharton. He’d cooked for the contest before with Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue.“We’re champions because his (chili) is the best,” she said. But the group hedged bets by dressing out in Crimson Tide gear, knowing no one’s going to deny that champion claim.Billy Wharton developed his recipe at the firehouse, where he and fellow firefighters spend a lot of time making life enjoyable while waiting on alarms.“It’s got chicken, Conecuh sausage and about 14 secret spices. And lots of beans,” he said. “I’ve tweaked it a little bit for this, because you’ve got people eating 30 or 40 different chilis. It’s a mixed crowd; some people don’t like it too hot.”Rod Halsten, chef for Chili Today Hot Tamale, similarly noted he’d had to alter his chili for a wide-ranging crowd. His aim was for a sweetness to hit the palate first, then have the peppers come roaring in behind that.“Personally, I like it hot, where after two bites sweat starts coming out on your forehead,” he said, laughing. “But I tune it down for this.”The family friendly event also featured ice cream and biscuits, along with all the crackers, cheese and other samples various contestants offered. There was a children’s area, with face-painting and balloons. From the stage, the Robert Morgan Band and Angela Hamiter and the Able Brothers provided acoustic music to dine by, broken up by announcements of prizes and other notes from Glen Smith, the cook-off chair.“This is our biggest fund-raiser,” Smith said, The Chili Cook-Off raises about $20,000 annually for local nonprofits who fall under the Exchange Club’s four chief areas: Youth, Community Service, Child Abuse Prevention and Americanism. Money raised also goes into the Exchange Club Foundation, which gives grants to area organizations such as Arts ’n Autism, Boys and Girls Clubs, Focus, United Cerebral Palsy, the Good Samaritan Clinic and dozens of others.“We’d like to make more, but we want to keep it affordable,” Smith said. Tickets for the 2013 Cook-Off were $8 in advance and $10 at the door.Grand Champion Chili winners were Rosen Harwood (Flying Monkey Chili), first Place; Queen City Title (Queen City Cooks), second Place; Tuscaloosa Fire & Rescue (Combat Chili Challenge), third Place. The creative awards went to PNC Bank, which had a Duck Dynasty theme, for Best Booth; to Tuscaloosa County Natural Resources Planning Commission, with a Free Range Chili theme, for Best Costumes; and Rosen Harwood again, for its Wizard of Oz-related Showmanship.People’s Choice awards went to Capstone Bank’s Miss Kitty’s Bunsmoke Chili, continuing its streak at first place; with Queen City Title in second and Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue in third.

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